


Negotiate

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Implied Sexual Content, Love/Hate, M/M, Suggestive Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:48:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23597860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: Noctis occasionally visits the Imperial City to speak on behalf of Lucis. Occasionally, Ravus lets him.
Relationships: Ravus Nox Fleuret/Noctis Lucis Caelum
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	Negotiate

**Author's Note:**

> A [prompt fill](https://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/615124399833628672/10-or-11-for-sensory-meme-your-ship-choice) for an anonymous request!

Ravus did not look forward to Noctis’ visits.

He dreaded the missives that came down from his superiors, a comedy of courtesy tipping him into the Imperials’ designs for any given month. He was always the last to know, but he was _always_ expected to participate – and worse, ingratiate himself to the Lucian ambassador. He was always, without fail, appointed to be the royal babysitter between the Crown Prince’s conferences with the Emperor’s favored sycophants. Ravus was tasked with keeping him out of trouble when Noctis wasn’t obliged to make the trouble for himself amidst the official negotiations.

Should it ever get out how exactly he’d been negotiating Noctis’ obedience behind locked doors, “trouble” would be the least of Ravus’ worries.

No, Ravus did not look forward to Noctis’ visits. He dreaded the clever little smirk he greeted Ravus with every time he stepped off the airship ramp. He detested the informal drawl of his voice, never once regarding Ravus’ position with the respect he expected him to deliver. Ravus made sure he got it, later, when the daily diplomacies were over, and he could be the one making demands of Noctis.

The only parts of Noctis’ visits Ravus looked forward, were the parts where he could smother his defiant grin into his pillows.

“What are we drinking?”

For now, Ravus had to allow him the privilege of opening his mouth. As much as he dreamed of muzzling the Crown Prince of Lucis, for the sake of public decency, at least, he’d have to endure the sound of his voice for a while longer.

“Vodka. Neat,” Ravus answered him, by way of ordering from the bartender.

As with every negotiation, certain expectations needed to be met. There were social rituals to abide by, meant to be shows of good faith to prelude the bargaining for anything of value. With the Imperials, they put up pretenses at their version of a “party” to welcome the visiting delegate and his retinue. They vied for his favor with bone-dry wines and near-empty plates of cold hors d’oeuvre that some old, out of touch chef heard were stylish somewhere other than Niflheim.

Noctis hated the functions more than he hated the actual congress itself. After half a year of overseeing the prince’s civil arrangements, Ravus had made a comprehensive study of his habits during these engagements. He accepted every drink handed to him with a premade smile, only to promptly set it aside, untouched, the second the proffering gentleman turned his back. He did much the same with his food, holding a single plate through the night and cutting off pieces of the miniscule appetizer to create the illusion of savoring it. He was quietest during these facsimiles of convivial luxury, too. Many of the Imperial politicians attempted to pry some sort of incriminating illumination out of him to use in the official proceedings. But his lips were sealed.

They only opened for Ravus. And only when he commanded him to.

He allowed it now, during his own ceremonial prologue to the arrangement he had planned for Noctis, now that the deliberations were over for the evening. The bar was dark and discreet, cut into the very foundations of Gralea, far, _far_ below the many watchful eyes of Zegnautus. Ordinarily, Ravus didn’t venture this deep below the city, where the old soul of Niflheim still smoldered in the cigarette trails and wood smoke of its original establishments. However, for the sake of arbitrating what he had wanted from Noctis’ on any given night, he’d made himself somewhat of a regular.

The Imperials’ cold act of cordiality did little to persuade Noctis to their point of view. Ravus, on the other hand, knew better how to warm the prince into compliance.

Thimblefuls of vodka were set before them, as icy still and clear as the colorless Niflheim horizon. Ravus knocked his back in one beat, the tap of the glass on the mahogany bar a prompt signaling for another. Noctis was more reserved, taking a tentative sip. It burned going down. Ravus could tell by the scrunch of his nose and how his eyes fell shut. He held the back of his hand to his face to cover the screwed up expression.

“How the hell do you stand this?” Noctis gasped, regaining himself once the alcohol burned its way down into his chest.

“By starting early.”

Ravus had built up a tolerance to it over his many years living in Gralea. He’d had his first shot of Vodka when he was sixteen. It was like a rite of passage for the youth of Niflheim. It never became his drink of choice, but on his bitterer nights, when he just wanted to get a little bit drunk and didn’t feel like he deserved the indulgence of a nice vintage, a shot of Vodka did the job.

In this case, it was two. Enough to unfetter what little moral decency might be left to hinder the vile fantasies he had in mind for Noctis to fulfill. Ravus drank the next shot slower, half waiting for Noctis to catch up, and half for his own self-preservation. He let himself feel the burn this time, savoring it like some self-immolating penitent in need of absolution. He let it slowly incinerate the frozen wall left over his inhibitions. He wouldn’t get drunk, and neither would Noctis. He wanted to enjoy this infernal treaty drawn between them.

“Finish one, and we can go,” he told the Prince.

Noctis glanced at him from beneath his riotous tumble of hair, his heady eyes a trap for Ravus’ patience. Without breaking his gaze, Noctis placed the rim of the glass between his lips, then drank it down, slow and smooth. His expression tensed for a moment, bearing the burn as it rushed down his throat, then his face relaxed as it settled at the bottom of his chest like a hearth’s fire, enkindling anticipation at the very core of him.

The Vodka helped brace the both of them for the frigid cold of Gralea’s empty streets. Noctis walked just shy of Ravus’ shadow, narrow and blurred beneath the streetlamps. There was little in the ways of recreation in this part of the city, and littler desire among its people to venture into the night. Gralea didn’t have the privilege of a magic crystal to keep it safe from daemons. Another chore Ravus was tasked with when finding ways to entertain the Prince during his visits: protecting him from daemonic maiming. Ravus had learned very quickly during these treacherous walks to his own, unsanctioned apartment, that Ravus was not the one doing the protecting.

One thing Noctis was better at than him.

Maybe that thought was what prompted Ravus to abruptly detour them into the first alley he saw between the dark, square buildings. Maybe he wanted to challenge a daemonic encounter, just so he could prove he was better equipped to dispatch them than Noctis was.

Or maybe he was just impatient. He pushed Noctis roughly against the brick wall, pressing his body tightly against his to hold him there. Then he took a fistful of his pitch black hair to jerk his head back and kiss him, full and hard and uncaring of the many dangers that might set upon them as he did so. Noctis whimpered in surprise, his back bending in to bow beneath Ravus’ harsh, unsaid demands.

“We’re not going back to your place?” Noctis gasped when Ravus permit him to breathe again.

“We are.”

“Then what are we doing?”

“ _You’re_ being quiet.”

Ravus silenced him again, Noctis’ mouth relenting obediently to the pressure. Ravus wanted to taste the faint char of Vodka on the back of his throat. He wanted to feel the sting of it on Noctis’ flushed lips. He wanted to remember this taste, this heat, for when he missed him when he left again.

Ravus did not love Noctis. He loathed him. And though it was Noctis on the receiving end of the punishments Ravus enacted for his insolent nature, maybe there was a little masochism in Ravus as well. Because dread his arrival though he may, his departure brought Ravus no relief. He craved that awful little smile once it was gone. He itched to hear the sound of his voice again, just so he could choke it off.

This time, Ravus was the one who needed to take a breath. Noctis panted beneath him, malty hot breath puffing out in clouds against his face. For a second, Ravus didn’t think he was going to make another sound. He thought that he’d successfully kissed him into submission before they even made it to the bedroom, and that pleased Ravus a great deal.

But then that smile curled Noctis’ lips again, and his eyes flashed with defiance.

“I knew you missed me.”

Ravus liked to tell himself that he was the one tugging on Noctis’ leash. But they both knew that Noctis had him on one of his own. And it was a very short leash.

**Author's Note:**

> Ravus the under-rated salt pile everybody.


End file.
